The document began with a treatise from chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies on prices. He remarks how encouraged he is that in the current financial year ‘concerns of bill-payers have been put at the heart of the debate about how to meet the country’s energy needs’. That is a wonderful sentiment but hardly a convincing narrative.

Until Ed Miliband chose to make energy prices a political issue in September, wiping billions from the share prices of SSE and Centrica, the big energy firms were all but impervious to consumer complaints about energy prices. Indeed, the tendency has been to hit back at critics rather than see the price discussion as a core issue.

If investors really want to know what is going on financially at SSE, they must turn to the final section of the RNS labelled ‘Outlook’. It is there that a final dividend of ‘around 3 per cent’ is revealed and the actual financial results projected.

In making the profit forecast it refers investors to small-print footnote number three, which reveals the consensus for full-year profits is £1,535m – up 8.8 per cent in a year when SSE hammered consumers with a price increase.

The dividend forecast, earnings per
share and profits prospect are by far the most critical pieces of hard
information for investors and should have been highlighted at the top of
the RNS statement.

Someone, somewhere at the listing authority, the stock exchange or the Financial Reporting Council needs to make sure that regulatory announcements are fit for purpose.

Sands of time

Standard Chartered, with a market capitalisation of close to £33billion, would be a big takeover bite for any other bank.

Moreover, in the post-financial crisis world, any bank making an offer for another would be looked at quizzically by investors.

The Royal Bank of Scotland deal with ABN Amro offers a warning against global ambition. And some of the bigger players, such as JP Morgan Chase, might well feel that they have quite enough to cope with as the regulatory bills for domestic expansion into Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual drop through the letterbox.

Chief executive Peter Sands was probably right in a Davos interview, the first since the boardroom shake-up at the bank, to describe reports of an impending bid as ‘speculative rubbish’. There must be serious questions as to whether its biggest investor – the Singaporean wealth fund Temasek Holdings with 18.1 per cent of the stock – would be interested in an offer.

Much of StanChart’s Asian operations are centred on the prosperous island state, making it a critical part of the financial infrastructure.

Sands’ other observation, that he is not interested in becoming chairman, should be taken with a pinch of salt. All the indications were that before the various jolts of recent times, including the Iranian sanctions-busting debacle and a profits warning, that is precisely what he wanted to do.

The door was slammed after these disappointments and he is no longer regarded as the silver-haired wunderkind of British banking.
The bigger question is how long will he hang on as chief executive?

If the new deputy chief executive Michael Rees impresses over the next year or so, it may well be that he will be slotted into the chief executive’s chair.
Sands might need to find himself an emeritus badge, if such a thing exists, to attend Davos in 2015.

Bargain basement

The rush to the stock market of discounter Poundland fills one with trepidation.
While German grocers Aldi and Lidl offer high-quality produce, from Alaskan smoked salmon to fine Swiss chocolate at great prices, Poundland offers tat. It may stock Duchy Original tea, but one imagines that when producers Waitrose discover a loophole being exploited they may close it down.

Investment banks Credit Suisse and JP Morgan hope to raise £800million from the sale. The price would suggest that the recession success story will become a recovery phenomenon.
Good luck.